Film Studios eyeing electronic distribution

[Paltry]

About damn time if you ask me. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/technology/04studio.html)

According to the article studios are already well on their way to releasing many of their movies digitally.

Sony, for example, is converting 500 movie titles to a digital format that can be downloaded and sold. Universal Pictures, a unit of NBC Universal, which is 80 percent owned by General Electric and 20 percent owned by Vivendi Universal, is preparing nearly 200 titles for digital online sale. And Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner, says it has already digitized most of its library of 5,000 films and will start selling some of them online later this year.

Do you think this will increase or decrease the amount of piracy online? Or will it create a new market like iTunes did?

[Evil Avatar]

Do you think this will increase or decrease the amount of piracy online? Or will it create a new market like iTunes did?

Unless there is some form of player to go along with these digital movies (the PSP perhaps?) I would suspect that it would just increase the amount of digital movie piracy.

I could see one of these large piracy groups buying Warner's entire library of 5,000 movies and putting them up on a ftp (or Bittorrent) site somewhere.

I do think that the movie industry needs to wake up and realize that digital distribution is imporant, but I would think that there needed to be some kind of real incentive not to just download these for free.

I was kind of leaning toward thinking Apple would make an iVideo player to go with these kind of downloads.

[Paltry]

Chances are most of these movies are already available to download illegally. I dont think that itunes helped create or stop piracy, it just opened up mp3 to the masses so to speak. Most of the people I know who use itunes couldnt tell me the difference between their ram and their hard drive. They wouldnt know the first place to start when it comes to illegal downloading, especially bittorrent. I think this digital distribution will be all posotive. Itll get a lotta people using their broad band for more than just email. As for me I think ill stick to bittorrent, but if they make these downloads as cheap as they should, which they wont, i may hop on the bandwagon.

[KarmaGhost]

What if I want to watch one of these movies on my home theater system and not my PC? Will I be allowed to burn a movie to a DVD, and if so, what's the point of having this digital distribution in the first place?

[sTubbs]

What if I want to watch one of these movies on my home theater system and not my PC? Will I be allowed to burn a movie to a DVD, and if so, what's the point of having this digital distribution in the first place?

Well, theoretically the cost per movie should be considerably less than at retail, because by distributing a movie digitally the film studios are cutting out the production and shipping costs. However, considering the currently falling prices of DVDs, and the douchebaggery of big media companies, it would not be surprising if they try to sell the online versions at full price.

[Paltry]

of course they will be full price. and piracy will continue until these companies start to realize that they cant keep gouging their customers.

[Evil Avatar]

of course they will be full price. and piracy will continue until these companies start to realize that they cant keep gouging their customers.

Gouging? Where do you live? I buy most of my DVD's for $9.99 for an older title or $14.99 for a new title.

Considering that it costs $9.00 to see a movie at the theater, that seems pretty damn cheap to me.

[Paltry]

well theres a lot of gouging. more so at the theaters yes but i still see dvds being sold for 15-25 a pop. 10 bucks is fair, same goes for music. These companies have had to anwer only to their whim for the past 50 years, the unterweb gave consumers a voice. and it looks like its working too. When media is sold for what its worth piracy will disappear.

[Paltry]

20% of a cd sale is production 80% is profit

If thats how milk was sold people would be stealing that too

[XxSATANxX]

Most of the people I know who use itunes couldnt tell me the difference between their ram and their hard drive. They wouldnt know the first place to start when it comes to illegal downloading

1/3 of the worlds Internet Traffic is Bittorrent.

[Paltry]

first off i dont buy that statistic

2nd if its true its because of the size of the files being downloaded and the connection speeds of the computer literate people who use torrent

now i am talking out of my ass here so i could be and am probobly wrong

;-)

[XxSATANxX]

first off i dont buy that statistic

2nd if its true its because of the size of the files being downloaded and the connection speeds of the computer literate people who use torrent

now i am talking out of my ass here so i could be and am probobly wrong

;-)

It's the best kept secret going:

http://www.cachelogic.com

I don't think the idea of promoting the heck out of P2P is really "IN" at the moment. Still it keeps growing. Careful break down of the recent Supreme court case MGM vs Grokster shows the court actually handed them a win.

I agree with EA that in order for this to grow into a legit thing it must be device driven.

Then stand back for the avalanche *hint *

But then again my ass does it's share of talking to. :-)

[Shifteh]

It will increase the amount of piracy, but will take the revenue generated by it from 0 to a hell of a lot.

[Oppe]

If a major media company wanted to, they could capture the "Average Joe" computer user easily using this kind of technology. Put your show on TV, and use it to promote a web site with bittorrent downloads of maybe three or four episodes for free, dumbed down enough for idiots to understand how to play them, and then offer the entire season for $15 bucks. Build it and they will come.

[Kelegacy]

electronically dispersed entertainment should be cheaper than its physical counterpart. I have to buy the media to burn it to, and maybe a case, so give me a hefty enough discount to make it worth my while, or else I will just go to a store and pay the same price for a hardcopy. A dollar a song at iTunes isnt bad at all, seeing how you normally can spend 13 bucks for a CD full of one good song and 12 other shitty ones. This way you get 13 great songs for 13 bucks. Still, i'm a cheapskate and always will be one, so I enjoy discounts when viable. This is such a case.

[Paltry]

oppe's got the right idea

[Balthasar]

Gouging? Where do you live? I buy most of my DVD's for $9.99 for an older title or $14.99 for a new title.

Considering that it costs $9.00 to see a movie at the theater, that seems pretty damn cheap to me.

Clearly you do not buy your DVDs at Virgin Megastore.

[Rommel]

I will admit I stole my first MP3 in four years last week. None of the legal service providers carried the Beatles (Stupid licenses) or Fiona Apple's (Stupid crazy magican boyfriend removing her popularity) version of Across the Universe. So as a last resort I WinMX'd it.

[Paltry]

For Shame Rommel

For Shame

[RMan]

Well, if they do it right, it could be really cool. My hope is that they’re attempting to pre-empt what happened in the music industry, which for me was very interesting. Personally, I listen to all my music on mp3s, but during the time when the music industry was fighting electronic delivery in order to listen to music legally I had to go to a store, buy the CD (if they had it), then convert it to mp3s. Therefore, for me the inconvenience of doing that actually outweighed the price, and piracy was clearly superior in every way for what I wanted (and contrary to my firm stand against piracy, I still pirated some music).

In time, I think movies could be in the same boat, since I don’t think they’re gearing up to sell just to people playing movies on their computer. I think the market is for mobile devices (meaning those mp3/movie players with a hard drive), delivery to PVRs (allowing single or multi-play rentals as well), and desktop and laptop computers. The hard drive I just bought could likely store my DVD collection on it (not a huge collection mind you), so it won’t take long before I’m going to want my movies stored on a HD, since if I had my house networked (which I do) I could have any movie in my collection instantly accessible throughout my home. At that point, like music, it will be more convenient for me to get the movies through online delivery, rather than physical delivery.

[Cuba]

I've seen some examples of the pricing they want to use: they want us to pay the cost of a full price cinema ticket to download a ~500MB WMV compressed, DRMed to hell file that will either only play once or not play at all after 24-48 hours.

Who is going to buy that?! I bet they will promote this "service" and then when people still pirate movies, complain that they were right all along: that even if they provide a way for people to legitimately download movies, they will still pirate them.

[RMan]

You may be right, time will tell, but tons of people said the same things about music and iTunes certainly charges a fair price IMO. I wouldn't be suprised if initially they're unreasonably priced, but I think they'll come around. I really don't think they care about being able to bitch about piracy, they want to maximize profits and having bitching rights seldom helps in that regard. I think right now there is a market for the same types of people that the music industry has, which is consumers that would be just as happy, or even happier, with an electronically distributed product (even if it's never as high demand as the music industry). Movielink already rents movies with a similar setup as what you describe, although not nearly the price of a cinema ticket, just a bit more than a movie rental (which is still too high, but since there's no competition that I'm aware of I guess they can get away with it).

[Paltry]

just checked out that link, danke satan

[Damion S]

One wonders about how the inherent differences between music and movies will affect things. Music is small, and it makes sense to want your music on a digital device (the iPod in particular).

Movies, on the other hand, take a ton of space. The only friend I know who downloaded movies regularly would usually delete them not long after he watched it, largely to make room for more. Also, DD is fine if you're watching them on your computer, but most people like to watch them on their HDTVs, and appreciate the display value of a DVD box. Is that different enough from music? Will this digital revolution change how we think about and watch movies?

[Cuba]

You may be right, time will tell, but tons of people said the same things about music and iTunes certainly charges a fair price IMO.That's subjective I guess, personally I think iTunes is a complete rip-off, I get my music from allofmp3, it costs about 1/10 of what iTunes users pay and I can get it in any format and any compression (ogg q6 for me). I don't see iTunes matching that anytime soon.

I wouldn't be suprised if initially they're unreasonably priced, but I think they'll come around. I really don't think they care about being able to bitch about piracy, they want to maximize profits and having bitching rights seldom helps in that regard.Any revenue/profits from e-distribution will be minimal compared to cinema and DVD sales IMO, but offering a legitimate download avenue will help their prosecution with Grokster-like court cases in the future. If not directly in the courts, then with Joe Average's perception of pirates: "They can buy it online but they still want to "steal" it! They are criminals, throw them all in prison!!". Although, this didn't really happen with music downloads, did it?

[Balthasar]

That's subjective I guess, personally I think iTunes is a complete rip-off, I get my music from allofmp3, it costs about 1/10 of what iTunes users pay and I can get it in any format and any compression (ogg q6 for me). I don't see iTunes matching that anytime soon.

Actually, that site is probably charging you to download music illegally.


Any revenue/profits from e-distribution will be minimal compared to cinema and DVD sales IMO...

You can't seriously believe that, can you?

[Cuba]

Actually, that site is probably charging you to download music illegally.Didn't you read that the russian police investigated them (at the "request" of the RIAA mind you), they we cleared of any illegal activity. The RIAA just wants them shut down because they don't see any of the money.

You can't seriously believe that, can you?Yes actually, don't CD sales still outrank online sales in dollar value, and music has been available online for years now.

How many "average" people do you think will: find the download site, find the movie they want, purchase it, spend 3 hours downloading it and transfer it to DVD/media centre (if this will even be possible). Compared to: going to shop, buying the DVD, possibly for the same price and going home and sticking it in the player.

I don't even think broadband takeup has hit 50% has it?

[Balthasar]

Yes actually, don't CD sales still outrank online sales in dollar value, and music has been available online for years now.

Actually, my mistake, I read your original comment wrong. I thought it said "any revenue/profits <b>lost</b> from e-distibution..." Obviously you didn't say that. Nevermind!